On the Origin of Language and Consciousness

JACINTHE BARIBEAUDept of Psychology
Concordia Univ. (Montreal)

A Review Essay.

Vietnamese philosopher Trân Duc Thao, in the book
Investigations into the Origin of Language and Consciousness [1], presents
his own materialist model for the role of signs and signals (semiotics) in the
emergence of homo sapiens from the primate state. His model seeks to
integrate current theories of child development psychology with the findings
of anthropology on the relations between tools, work activity, social relations,
language, and the objective ontogeny of consciousness of self, thus producing
what he calls "the semiotics of real life." An added benefit from
his endeavor is the introduction to English‑language readers of the dialectical
materialist tradition established by Soviet anthropologists A. Spirkin and V.
P. Iakimov [2]. This impressive undertaking has a weakness to be discussed here:
Thao's failure to free himself fully from his previous preoccupation with the
idealist concepts of Husserl's phenomenology, so akin to Sartre's existentialism
[3]. Since Thao's work has been quite independent of mainstream anthropology,
his original theoretical approach has a freshness which warrants our attention.
His writing combines mastery of scientific psycho‑linguistics and anthropology
with the finesse characteristic of phenomenological analysis.

In the three chapters of this book, the author attempts
to apply a dialectical materialist method to the investigation of consciousness
as it is objectively experienced in three aspects of its relation to the external
world: 1) the indicative gesture as the original form of consciousness; 2) the
development of the instrument and the birth of language; 3) the origins of the
Oedipal crisis.

The first chapter of Thao's book is deeply indebted
to Spirkin's anthropological analysis of "gestural indication". This
act of pointing to an object was, according to Spirkin, the crucial initial
moment which allowed pre‑hominids to develop a progression of linguistic
signs. From there, Thao gives an erudite anthropological analysis of the origins
of primitive prelinguistic signs, proceeding from the indicative gesture, to
the development of self‑recognition and self‑reference in the process
of reciprocal interaction and recognition of/with others. The next phase is
the act of "echoic representation", Thao's original anthropological
application of the Marxist theory of self‑consciousness [4] to the concrete
context of pre‑hominid tribal daily activities and interactions. He then
hypothesizes further stages of development leading to qualitatively different
"flashes of consciousness", which he terms sporadic cognizance, individual
cognizance and collective cognizance, and which constitute the praxical basis
for the ideality of consciousness.

Analysis by levels

Another original contribution of Thao here is his
demonstration of the correspondence of these three anthropologically‑derived
stages of cognizance to the concrete experience of consciously apprehending
an object. At the first level, the real object appears as a given from the external
world in its sensory image, as existing outside consciousness and independently
of it. At the second level is the concrete perceptual experience itself, where
the sensory image is "projected" unto the object, giving it
meaning based on experience. It is thus perceived as an image of that first‑level
image, or the image of itself in itself.

At the third level appears, in a relatively confused
form, the social image where the subject sees himself as others see him in a
structure of reciprocity of actions and as others see the external world. Here
the act of perception has its own image in the gesture of the others with whom
the subject identifies, so that this image of himself which he finds in the
others presents itself as within himself. According to Thao the phenomenological
method concentrates its attention on the second level, the "experienced"
image. It systematically ignores the first level of the "real" image
and is never able to grasp the third social image because of its solipsist perspective.
Here Thao uses scientific anthropological evidence to dispose of the phenomenological
claim that introspection is the essential basis of knowledge of the psyche.

One problem with the first chapter is Thao's use
of terms such as "flashes of consciousness" and "tendential images
projected by internal gesture" (p. 25). Here Thao's attempt at a materialist
analysis stumbles at the difficulty of translating concrete "experienced"
aspects of representation and meaning into materialist neurophysiological terms.
An example is this passage (p. 20):

"In fact, the projection which constitutes this image starting from
the outlined movements of the animal, is actually produced by the 'tendency'
of these movements . . ., the psychic image has a tendential reality, so to
speak, . . . . it remains strictly nonmaterial."

Though Thao's concept of the "tendential image"
is elaborated from Spirkin's theory, he seems to overlook essential notions
of Spirkin's theory based in the neurophysiology of the second signalling system.
These notions are essential to understand fully the material neural basis of
linguistic images and representation.

Since the language of the neurophysiology of higher
nervous processes provides alternative scientific formulations of greater clarity
to refer respectively to "consolidations of incidental association"
or to "inner speech" [5], one may wonder why Thao kept the ambiguous
references to "tendential images" in his text. It must be that the
author had some reservations in using purely neurophysiological terms. I suspect
that such reservations, which are common to many philosophers dealing with the
difficult definition of mental images, have something to do with the fear of
biological reductionism, a fear which might be accentuated in Thao's case by
his phenomenological background. Perhaps the apparent "idealism" involved
in such analyses of the "tendential image", etc., Thao terminates
this chapter by paying his dues to Lenin's materialist analysis of mental representations
[6], and equating it to his own interpretation.

Recapitulation of consciousness

In the second chapter, concerned with the development
(ontogeny) of individual consciousness, Thao's materialist anthropological analysis
of the development of the indicative gesture in pre‑ and early hominids
provides an analytical grid against which he objectively traces the interaction
of the three levels of reflection in the formation of the first operations of
meaning in the consciousness of the human child. Here, Thao gives a highly complex
analysis and integrative reinterpretation of Piaget's observations on the development
of inner speech and thought in the child [7].

The ontogenetic phases proposed by Thao are the
following: 1) The indicative sign (14 months) accompanied with the word (sentence);
2) the first signs of representation (14‑18 months) where the child is
capable of an enduring image of the object in its absence; 3) the developed
indicative sign (13‑18 months); 4) the signs of "syncretic"
representation (16-­17 months), where syncretic refers to the confused alternating
between two representations: the developed gesture imitating the motion of the
object and the indicative gesture of the object (the "this here");
5) the deferred imitation as an insistent syncretic sign of representation of
the motion of the absent object; 6) the functional sentence, from its elementary
forms to developed types; 7) the disengagement of the form and the birth of
the name.

To support his phylogenetic theory of the syncretic
sign as a turning point in the appearance of truly conscious representation,
and in the absence of anthropological data on that specific anthropological
era where syncretic signs are hypothesized to take place (Homo Faber Primigenitus),
Thao skillfully and ingeniously combines evidence from observations of children
by Piaget's disciple, Gouin‑Décarie, and her non‑Piagetian interpretation
of such findings [8]. This is done in parallel with an elaborate phylogenetic
analysis of the slow differentiation from the signaling and signifying gestures
of pre-hominids to the semiotics of Homo sapiens taking form in the tool-making
process. Step 1: the development from natural instruments used by apes in the
presence of the object of biological need to the preparation of instruments
by anthropoids with a consequent generalized sensori‑motor image of the
instrumental function, in parallel to the necessary formation of the "indicative
gesture". Step 2: the phase of adaptation and formation of habits linked
to prepared tools in the genus Praehomo entails the capacity for "sense
certainty" that comes with cognizance of the indicative sign (Australanthropi).
Step 3: the elaborated instrument (Kafuan) requires a representation of the
absent object of a biological need and leads also to Step 4: a syncretic representation
of the instrumental shape and later to Step 5: the production of the shape of
the useful part of the instrument (Olduvian). Step 6: finally, the production
of an instrument with representation of its total shape is defined as a tool,
thus marking Chellean man and the emergence of genus Homo Faber (Pithecanthropus).

The following excerpt shows how creatively Thao integrates
evidence from two fields of science to understand the development of thinking
in the last phase, the formation of sentences: the use and making of tools taking
place in the context of task‑oriented social interaction brings about
the sentence as the necessary consequence of the communication involved in such
a process (pp. 73‑74):

Tool production implies the shaping of the whole of the raw material according
to a total typical form . . . While the (Olduvian). chopper only requires
from 5 to 8 cutting strokes on both sides of the edge, the Chellean biface
requires several dozen well‑ordered strokes, and for each stroke, the
exact striking place, the direction and the force of the motion. Here the
worker must be able to indicate to himself a series of operations which presupposes
the differentiation of the verb . . ."

Enter Oedipus

The third part of the book is an essay, "Marxism
and Psychoanalysis on the Origins of the Oedipal Crisis". Trân Duc Thao
criticizes and reconstructs the hypothetical beginnings of the Oedipal triangle
in its pre‑Oedipal stage by developing the theory of the socio‑historical
forms of individuality. Thao's socio‑historical model traces the Oedipal
crisis to the social progression from what he calls animal "jealousy"
to the suppression of "zoological individualism", as a condition for
the formation of the first cohesive social group which is essential for the
beginning of human production. According to Thao, the next stages develop with
the transition from the communalization of women to the pairing family, involving
the "reawakening of jealousy" and the emergence of the Oedipus complex.

In opposition to Freudian theory of the Oedipus
complex, which essentially bases itself on descriptive notions of concrete biological
facts such as instinct and pleasure, Thao attempts to grasp its concrete socio‑historical
determination.

Thao however does not criticize nor question the
validity of the Freudian concepts of the unconscious and of the Oedipal formation
or structure in the unconscious psyche. Simply assuming the existence of the
Oedipal structure in the unconscious as a given, he attempts to find its socio‑historical
determinants and to support it with facts from anthropology. From Freud's point
of view the Oedipal conflict is born of the abstract opposition between "Desire"
and "Social Law." From Thao's point of view the Oedipus complex originates
in the dialectical contradiction, historically determined, between two laws:
on the one hand, the primitive law of the communalization of women which, in
the amorphous and undifferentiated state of the first human society during the
Chellean era, guaranteed, by the strict interdiction of jealousy, the necessary
unity and solidarity for the beginnings of tool production. On the other hand
there is the new law of the pairing marriage, imposed by the development of
household industry in the Mousterian epoch. The old communal right to sexual
freedom without restrictions becomes a hindrance to the development of productive
forces and loses all social justification, now merely appearing as a simple
individualistic claim. Such a claim in other circumstances could have been limited
to particular cases without leaving any trace in heredity. Thao argues, however,
that the coincidental circumstances of what he calls "the biological tragedy
of woman", where gait changes to vertical locomotion, the consequent pelvic
inadequacies, and the ensuing high mortality rates of women during that period,
aggravated undisciplined jealous competition for the few remaining female partners,
especially among the youth.

The contradictions of the two laws assumed the anguished
form of sharp conflict between generations: older male‑Fathers, experienced
hunters and paired with female‑Mothers, versus the young "bachelor‑Sons,"
less experienced at hunting and often given the task of protecting the female-Mothers
and children while the rest of the tribe was gone on expeditions. According
to Thao, this generation conflict developed into a gigantic social generation
conflict, as the competition for female‑Mothers (since most females were
mothers at a very young age) became embodied in what Thao calls "the
language of real life". This introduced pre‑linguistic contradictions
at the unconscious level of language between sexual desire for women and for
Mothers when almost all women surviving the 'biological tragedy' were necessarily
playing a highly valued Mother role. Here Thao does not define by what mechanisms
the translation of social relations becomes codified into an unconscious structure
even less materially defined, which would have the property of being passed
on through hereditary mechanisms to the next generations, in the form of pre‑linguistic
mental structures. At this point Thao's hypothesis is purely speculative and
seems to endorse the idealist notion of Jungian archetypes and to rely on a
highly Lamarckian understanding of evolution in a rather intrepid way. The author
uses a very self‑assured tone in proposing such a hypothesis to
the point that he does not even warn the reader of the speculative character
of such hereditary mechanisms and of the questionable factual nature of his
anthropological interpretation.

Moreover, Thao proposes this hereditary mechanism
to account for the perpetuation of a complex of unconscious feelings in the
unconscious of today's child and today's adult neurosis. Thao's definition of
the unconscious is the key to this remarkable reconstruction. He defines the
unconscious as "the sedimented residue of the language of the transcended
stages of human development" (p. 195). This definition of the unconscious
appears very abruptly in the last pages of the chapter without further elaboration.
The text would have gained very much if the author had used the conditional
tense more frequently.

Another criticism is that Thao overemphasizes the
evidence from family interactions to support his theory of the origins of Oedipus.
This theory does not attempt to account for the psychopathological and clinical
facts essential to the development of Freudian Oedipal theory.

One important weakness in Thao's psychoanalytic
interpretation is his argument that the Oedipal complex is a deviation or impasse
in anthropogenesis and that the social relations of the time allowed for a second
more "healthy" solution in parallel to the "Oedipal" solution
to the generation conflict. Thao describes the healthy way, as the "Path
of affectionate identification without rivalry". As a support of this hypothesis,
Thao proposes the "ambivalence" of social relations which developed
in the endogamic community of the Mousterian period. Forgetting that such "ambivalence"
is far from demonstrated, and just postulated in the first argument on the Oedipal
relations, Thao develops a second hypothetical interpretation: on the one hand,
owing to the lack of women, the "Sons" found themselves sexual rivals
of the "Fathers", but on the other hand, because the communal economy
has remained dominant, the immediate communal relation would have maintained
between them an identification without jealousy, following the tradition "inherited"
from the original Chellean community (p. 196). Thao continues his speculation
with overcertain statements such as: "The same was undoubtedly true
for the Mothers" (p. 196) who, on the one hand, because of their age, appeared
as objects of desire to the Sons but, on the other hand, as mothers responsible
for the fireplace and guardians of precious provisions for the community, could
not fail to elicit respect in the Sons. Thao goes on, concluding "and it
was undoubtedly that respectful identification of the Sons with their social
parents which initiated them into the practice of developing personal relationships".
Here Thao places the anthropogenetic birth of "personal" relations,
defined as the first "intersubjective" relations, so central to the
development of human consciousness.

This speculation however makes very little sense
without the central postulate that "healthy" attitudes of respect
were "inherited" from the original Chellean community. Thus this second
and parallel "healthy" social structure is also inherited and can
only be as difficult to accept as the first Oedipal one by the non‑psychoanalytic
and critically­-minded reader. Though Thao does not say it, the reader may wonder
if a human's mental structure for "personal" relations is also inherited.

Both types of relations, Oedipal and healthy, may
have taken place in reality, but why would Thao need to postulate such an improbable
and fancy mechanism as hereditary transmission of unconscious structures to
explain their alleged presence in today's societies?

To conclude, this book provides the elements of
a creative answer to this old idealist-materialist conundrum concerning the
origins of consciousness: if human consciousness presupposes representations,
and if this consciousness emerges first with production using tools, and if
the production of tools itself presupposes representationthat is, an image
in the mind of the producer of what is to be producedthen the conditions
for the origins of human consciousness already presuppose the very form of consciousness
which they are supposed to explain. Thao breaks this circle by asking the question
in another way, compatible with the historical materialist account: by asking
if representation, as an essential precondition of consciousness, itself has
its genesis in still more elementary forms of pre‑representational consciousness;
by proposing that the latter existed prior to the fully human forms of production,
and prior to the use of tools. These proposals are indeed extremely thought‑provoking
and will certainly open new avenues for the anthropological investigations of
consciousness.

[2] Iakimov, V. P., The Origins of Man,
Moscow (1964). Spirkin, A., The Origin of Consciousness, Moscow (1960).
(Thao lived in France for some years, where he also brought these Soviet authors
to the attention of French readers.)

[3] In the 1950s, Thao wrote several seminal studies
on Husserl and Marx including Phénoménologie et Materialisme Dialectique
(1951). In the 1960s, he tried to develop a phenomenological method, purifying
it as much as possible from Husserlian idealism, in order to integrate it with
materialist dialectics. The present book represents an about face by the author
after having dismissed the possibility of such a goal. Reflecting Spirkin's
theory of the origins of consciousness and language, and the semiological and
linguistic studies derived from the model of Ferdinand de Saussure (Cours
de Linguistique, Payot, Paris, 1915), Trân Duc Thao moved towards an elaboration
of a truly dialectical semiology through criticism of Husserlian phenomenology.

[4] The historical materialist theory of self‑consciousness
is based on the social relations of reciprocity; in the activity of collective
labor, the workers point out to each other the object of their common efforts.
Each is thus alternatively, or even simultaneously, the giver and the receiver
of the indication, both the one who guides and the one guided. In other words,
each sees in the other a being similar to himself, making the same gesture,
and it is precisely because he sees himself in the others that the enduring
image of the social environment allows him, when alone, to take the point of
view of these others who are his other self in order to point out the object
to himself.

[6] In Materialism and Empirio‑criticism
(p. 51) sensation is defined as the simplest form of consciousness: "it
is its immediate connection with the external world." In "Philosophical
Notebooks" (p. 182) Lenin further explains that "Knowledge is
the brain itself in its motion of thinking." Thus knowledge is not just
a simple physiochemical movement. It is a most complex cerebral neurophysiological
movement taking the forms of signifying gestures and linguistic signs which
are shaped by and reflective of the human forms of social interactions.